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While many countries saw supermarkets stripped of toilet paper at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, AFP reports that in Albania it is donkey milk that has seen an increase in demand.
Considered rich in vitamins and a boost to the immune system, high-priced milk has been flying off the shelves during the coronavirus pandemic, a time when many in Albania are looking for an additional boost to health.
“Demand for donkey’s milk is rising dramatically” along with virus infections, says Elton Kikia, 37, manager of the small farm in the town of Paper, where about a dozen knobby-kneed small animals frolic around of a green grass.
The high demand is good news for the donkeys themselves, whose comfortable farm life is a welcome respite from their traditional roles as beasts of burden.
Typically enlisted to carry heavy loads and pull carts through Albania’s mountainous terrain, donkeys are often subjected to ill-treatment, in the form of beatings, overwork or sores on saddles.
“However, it is a very delicate animal, which needs tenderness and love to produce its milk,” Kikia told AFP.
Two years ago he left his job as a journalist to take over the family farm, which is just one of two in the country that raises donkeys for their milk.
At 50 euros a liter, the price of their milk is exorbitant in a country where the average salary barely reaches 400 euros a month.
But the fears surrounding Covid-19 have sparked a wave of interest.
While no one regards milk as a cure for the virus, hobbyists are convinced that its nutritional profile, which is close to breast milk, helps strengthen the body’s natural defenses.
Klea Ymeri, an agri-environmental engineering student, recently traveled to Paper to buy two 250-milliliter bottles to help her parents recover from Covid-19.
“In addition to the medications they are taking, donkey milk could be a good natural remedy for the respiratory system,” he told AFP.
